hummingwolf (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hummingwolf) wrote2006-11-07 05:26 pm
hummingwolf) wrote2006-11-07 05:26 pm
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Yo Voté (Those wacky Republicans!)
Many people this election season have been up in arms about the electronic voting machines and how easy it is to manipulate results while escaping detection. Most of the angst seemed to come from the liberals, but here in Maryland even our Republican governor Bob Ehrlich urged people to vote by absentee ballot so as to avoid using the dread machines. While rather a lot of voters answered the call, rather a lot of the rest of us did not, which is why I was standing in line today along with oodles of friendly neighbors.
As we stood in line, the election judge called for our attention, holding up a piece of paper and shouting, "Listen! This is a LIE!" All day she'd been noticing people going to the voting booths carrying these sheets of paper with candidates' names and smiling faces [Edit: I'm not sure about the smiling faces, since I didn't see the thing close up. Now I wish I'd collected some of that literature when it was offered to me], but in the afternoon someone called her attention to what the literature actually had on it. Now, these fliers were made up to look like official Democratic party literature, telling folks in this largely Democratic district who the Democratic party wants them to vote for. And this handy little list of Democratic politicians included such people as... our Republican governor, Bob Ehrlich. Nice!
It's reassuring to know that in a world of hackable, digital voting machines, a bit of low-tech deception still has its place.
So anyway, after standing around chuckling about the antics of those wacky Republicans (the judges said something about busloads of folks from Philadelphia hanging out at various of our polling places today), I touched lots of pretty buttons on the Diebold screen, carefully reviewed the summary at the end to make sure the machine had accurately noted my preferences, then consigned my ballot to its electronic doom. Affixing my "Yo Voté/I Voted" sticker to my jacket, I went outside and immediately signed a petition to keep the Green Party on the ballot because, as I said to the signature collector, "The more, the merrier!" Then I went shopping for shampoo and toilet paper because that's just the kind of glamorous life I lead.
[Edit: Washington Post story about those fliers. No, I did not vote for Ehrlich or Steele (unless Diebold says I did).]
As we stood in line, the election judge called for our attention, holding up a piece of paper and shouting, "Listen! This is a LIE!" All day she'd been noticing people going to the voting booths carrying these sheets of paper with candidates' names and smiling faces [Edit: I'm not sure about the smiling faces, since I didn't see the thing close up. Now I wish I'd collected some of that literature when it was offered to me], but in the afternoon someone called her attention to what the literature actually had on it. Now, these fliers were made up to look like official Democratic party literature, telling folks in this largely Democratic district who the Democratic party wants them to vote for. And this handy little list of Democratic politicians included such people as... our Republican governor, Bob Ehrlich. Nice!
It's reassuring to know that in a world of hackable, digital voting machines, a bit of low-tech deception still has its place.
So anyway, after standing around chuckling about the antics of those wacky Republicans (the judges said something about busloads of folks from Philadelphia hanging out at various of our polling places today), I touched lots of pretty buttons on the Diebold screen, carefully reviewed the summary at the end to make sure the machine had accurately noted my preferences, then consigned my ballot to its electronic doom. Affixing my "Yo Voté/I Voted" sticker to my jacket, I went outside and immediately signed a petition to keep the Green Party on the ballot because, as I said to the signature collector, "The more, the merrier!" Then I went shopping for shampoo and toilet paper because that's just the kind of glamorous life I lead.
[Edit: Washington Post story about those fliers. No, I did not vote for Ehrlich or Steele (unless Diebold says I did).]
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There was a mailing sent out too which might have more of an effect, though, since it featured the faces of three prominent black Democrats and heavily--and falsely--implied that those men endorsed Ehrlich and Steele.
It could be interesting to see if anyone will be held accountable for this stuff.
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